


it's our time to make a move

by tosca1390



Category: Psy-Changeling - Nalini Singh
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M, Non-Canon Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 01:30:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4202829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>This relationship business has been sometimes an excruciating emotional development. He still isn’t sure what to feel and emote on a daily – sometimes momentary – basis. </i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>  <i>“I am not tense,” is all he says in reply. “These jeans are quite tight.”</i></p><p> </p><p>Five times Aden wants to tell Rina he loves her, and one time he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's our time to make a move

**Author's Note:**

  * For [magisterequitum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magisterequitum/gifts).



> Nalini Singh will have to rip this ship from my cold dead frozen hands. 
> 
> Anyway. Limited spoilers for Shards of Hope. Non-canon compliant, however. 
> 
> For my dear Jordan.

[1]

Rina is hardly ever still. 

Even before they were engaged in a personal relationship, Aden noticed this about her. On her patrols of the empath enclosure, she would be constantly on alert, vibrating with energy. There is nothing casual about her attention; she keeps everything in her sights. 

So, when she collapses in her bed and falls promptly asleep, after a day of patrols and a night of dinner and sex on the kitchen table, Aden does not immediately follow suit. Instead, he stretches out alongside her in bed and watches her in her stillness. It feels like a gift. The summer night air is sweet as he breathes in slow and deep, floral and pine-filled. Moonlight creeps in through the gauzy curtains, lining her hair and cheeks in silver. She curls on her side, naked in the humid heat of July, her face relaxed with sleep. 

There are words on his tongue, ones he has never fathomed. This connection, still so tenuous, holds him as hard as any Arrow under his care. She is outside of his responsibilities, and yet; he wants to care for her, to watch out for her. She makes him smile; a laugh will erupt from his throat one of these days, he’s certain. She also drives him absolutely insane with her fierce physicality and her fervent need for action, almost carelessly throwing herself into the fray. 

She might be the death of him, and he would take it gladly. 

Watching her sleep exacerbates the ache in his chest, a strange psychic longing. There is a connection here he has yet to grasp, but it feels it, reaching between the two of them.

He can’t just sit here and watch her sleep. Aden is a man of action, even if it is behind the scenes. 

So, he rises from the bed and dons a t-shirt and boxers. The cabin is quiet as he treads across the floorboards. Kit is out this evening – not on patrol, but out on the town. Rina worries for him, though she thinks she covers it well. Aden knows that worry; he has siblings of a kind to take up his time. Someday, she will tell him of her concerns, of the alpha her brother will someday become and what that means for Pack and the family she’s kept together here by the grit of her jaw. Perhaps tomorrow; tonight, though, he can ensure she sleeps with no fear. 

The floors are cool and creak with age under his careful feet. Aden moves nearly soundlessly down the stairs, into the kitchen. His mind whirs with emotional seepage, the ache in his chest intensifying. His Silence was always flawed, therefore emotion is not foreign; however, he has never been so unable to define it before. Here he washes dishes and cleans the kitchen cabinets as he struggles to define the unknowable, words in his mouth that taste strange. 

“Aden?”

In the midst of reorganizing the ecofridge, he looks up. Rina stands in the doorway, in a black t-shirt of his that hits the top of her knees. Her eyelids droop with sleep but she rubs at them, pushing her loose curls away from her face. 

“Did I wake you?” he asks, straightening and closing the fridge door. 

She tilts her head, resting her hands on her hips. “Well – no.”

“Good,” he says. “You should rest.”

“What the hell are you doing?” she asks pleasantly, walking into the kitchen. Her bare feet look delicate against the scuffed hardwood floors. 

“Cleaning,” he says after a moment. “Should I not have? I apologize.”

Her mouth twitches into a smile. “Babe, you do you. I’m just – I’m curious.”

“I did not want to disturb your rest, and I was not tired,” he says. He can’t say what he really wants – that he is terrified of the unnamed emotion between them, and needed the structure of a project to calm himself down. 

Though, as she steps forward and takes the carton of eggs from his hands and places them back in the ecofridge, he thinks she may not believe him a fool. 

“You’re a strange guy. But that’s okay,” she says quietly. “Come to bed.”

“Your cereals need to be alphabetized.”

“How about I teach you how to sixty-nine instead?” she offers, face completely straight. 

He licks his lips involuntarily. The manual concerning sexual relations passed through his hands, of course. He’s made use of the knowledge of his Arrow compatriots, of course. But the visual imagery of Rina twined about him – it puts the manual to shame. 

She smiles and his heartrate speeds up. 

“I promise you can organize everything in here in the morning, if you really want,” she wheedles, rising up on her toes to kiss him long and slow. “But you’re here and I’m here and I want to spend the night with you in my bed, babe.”

Aden wraps his arms around her waist and lifts her up against him. She laughs, the sound husky and warm against his skin. How can he say no to that?

He doesn’t tell her what he wants to say, of course. Those words are alien to his tongue. But in the morning he does finish organizing the kitchen. It is streamlined, and she compliments it as he makes her breakfast. 

He knows it isn’t enough. 

*

[2]

“You look tense,” Rina says mildly as she leans against the bar. 

Aden fixes an even stare on her. In the shadowed and purple lighting of the bar, she is irresistible; her hair curls full and lush down her back, her black dress taut to each toned curve and limb. The rise of her breasts against the scoop hem is hard to peel his gaze from. He wants to wrap himself around her and shield her from view, from the prying eyes of men and women who want her – but he also wants to pin her to the bar and take her, right _here_. 

This relationship business has been sometimes an excruciating emotional development. He still isn’t sure what to feel and emote on a daily – sometimes momentary – basis. 

“I am not tense,” is all he says in reply. “These jeans are quite tight.”

She smirks and waggles her fingers at the bartender. There is a heavy press of people of all races in the bar tonight, with the roof deck upstairs prime drinking territory. “Babe, I know. I picked them out, remember?”

“Cruel,” he murmurs. 

She laughs and orders him a cranberry juice, while she takes a Diet Coke. They are in this crowded bar near the San Francisco waterfront as backup, assisting DarkRiver and SnowDancer as well as the Arrows in their information gathering concerning Silent Voices and the Consortium. Silver Mercant, through her connections, has traced one of the investors to this particular business; now, a team of changelings, humans, and Psy have converged, attempting to gather intelligence. 

Aden is too well-known for leading missions such as this. However, with Rina at his side, he becomes nondescript. No one cares about him when she’s standing next to him, wearing a dress that hides nothing. 

“You look like my grandmother used to when Kit would eat all the cookies before dinner,” Rina says as she hands him his juice. “Or Kit when a girl rebuffs him. Why the frown?”

“Your dress hides very little,” he says. 

She smiles a little, dark eyes flashing in the shimmering light. “Picked it just for you.”

“Where is your weaponry?” he asks. “I would not have you unarmed.”

Rina laughs and curls up to him, stretching up to brush her lips against his ear. “I’m never unarmed.”

His hand settles at her back, his fingers tracing her spine through the dress. “Where are you keeping them?”

“Unwrap me and find out, stud,” she whispers, her hips nestled right up to his. 

It is there he has the impulse to expose his heart to her, with her teasing smile and the press of her body against his. She knows just how to push and wriggle into his space, his life; he cannot imagine a day without her, at this point. 

“Indigo’s on the move,” she whispers before he can say a word. “Out the back.”

Aden flexes his hand on her back. “Should we follow?” He respects Rina’s experience and leaves the decision to her, particularly in operations where the changelings are most familiar with the terrain, so to speak. 

She presses her lips to his exposed throat. Desire flicks through him, a hot press in his belly. “Not yet. Wait – “

He raises his rocks glass, preparing to take a sip. Her strong fingers wrap around his. “Wait.”

Looking down at her, he watches as her nose twitches, her lips curl into a snarl. “ _Wait_ ,” she hisses, plucking the drink from his hand. 

“Rina – “

She leans up and kisses him right on the mouth, her teeth sinking into his bottom lip. The music thrums under his skin but he knows he’s hot from her, that the ringing in his ears will be from the press of her teeth into his skin. How she could have marked him so indelibly is a mystery, but he refuses to question it. 

“Your drink is spiked. They know you’re here,” she whispers against his mouth, her eyes fixed on his. 

His hand twitches against her back, the fabric of her dress slick under his fingertips. “Oh?” He trusts her changeling senses. 

Baring her teeth, she steps back slightly. “I’ve got this,” she says, and spills the juice over her dress, the low cut of her neckline. “Oh, damn!” she calls, touching his chest lightly. “I’m _such_ a klutz. How do you put up with me, really?”

Aden bites back an unfamiliar smile. When she leans back over the bar, her gaze fixed on their original bartender – who can hardly resist a damp and luminous woman in a short black dress – he keeps an eye on their surroundings, reaching out psychic sensors. His mind is shielded well enough so that no one would know him from any other Psy in the bar. Clearly, an inside job. 

When he looks back at Rina, she has her hand on the bartender’s wrist, and a knife at the other. Aden blinks, startled. She has her interrogation stare fixed on her face, playing the edge of her knife along the trembling bartender’s milk-pale skin, along the rise of his veins. One flick and he would be bleeding, right to death. 

Again, he bites back those three words. It would be improper at this juncture. 

An hour later, they walk to the Pack vehicle, trailing behind Zach and Desi. Aden slides his hand along Rina’s forearm and grasps her fingers in his. “Where did you hide the knife?”

Rina glances up at him, cheeks flushed and eyes bright. “A lady never tells.”

“Under the dress?” he asks. 

“Why? Getting you hot?” she teases. 

In response, he winds an arm around her waist and picks her right up off her feet, kissing her breathless. 

“Thank you for having my back,” he says when he sets her back down. 

She smiles, her bottom lip trembling slightly. Her worry is suddenly a harsh thing in his throat, an emotion he knows as hers. “Always, babe.”

Aden knows he can treat her word as good as gold. 

*

[3]

In the late summer sunlight, Kit squints. Dark hair brushes his forehead, but he ignores it. 

“You want to what?” he asks, hunched over his coffee mug as he sits with Aden on the creaking porch steps. 

Aden sits up straight as a pin, looking out across the heavily-wooded land. Yellow morning light slips through the branches and leaves, dappling the browning forest floor. The heat of the day is just beginning to sink against his skin. Under his palms, the porch wood is harsh and splintering. 

“I would like to renovate sections of the house,” he repeats, glancing at Kit. 

Dark eyes focus like lasers on Aden. Kit has the makings of an impeccable leader. He is charming and amiable when needed, but the intelligence and calculation of a true alpha is never far from his gaze. He assesses a situation just as Aden or Lucas or Hawke would; quickly and thoroughly, with little room for questioning of judgement. There is still something of youth about him, despite the maturity displayed. Aden hopes he doesn’t lose it too quickly; he knows Rina worries for her younger brother, even as she pushes him to be more, to fulfill his dreams. 

“Why?” Kit asks, taking a long swallow of his coffee. His body is tense under his loose t-shirt and sweatpants, as is posed for a strike. 

“Because this house is important to Rina. And I know that she wishes some things could be better,” Aden says stiffly. 

What he doesn’t say is – there’s a psychic bond outside of the realm of his world binding him to her, and every day he feels a pang of sadness not his own as he watches her walk through the only home she’s known. Happiness is beyond the memories of her youth, here; she cannot think of the joys of the claw-marked kitchen table without the sadness of the porch her father never finished, or the upstairs bathroom her mother always wanted to refit. And there is something else too, something he senses deeply within her; to make this place a home for the both of them, and the family they may raise, either biological or adopted. A place for the Arrow children to stay, or for Pack to dine with them. 

Rina is a soldier, but she likes the comforts of familial ties, as well. He wants to give her all of it. 

Kit glances him over and snorts. “Man, you should really just tell her you love her.”

Pressing his lips together, Aden rises from his seat atop the porch step. “Will you assist me?”

Heaving a sigh, Kit shrugs. “Yeah, sure. I’ll call Dorian. He’ll know how to do what we need. Clay, too.”

Blinking, Aden runs a hand through his hair. “I did not think to ask them. It’s such a small job.”

“Pack loves this shit,” Kit says with a shit-eating grin. “Don’t think Tammy isn’t going decorate the hell out of your kitchen.”

“The kitchen is fine,” Aden says, taken aback. 

“So not the point, man,” Kit mutters, and pulls out his phone. 

Two weeks later, under the guidance of Dorian and Clay, and with the assistance of what seems like the entire region – Sienna and Riordan from SnowDancer came to lend a hand, as did Judd and a strangely helpful Kaleb – Aden watches from his seat at the kitchen table as Rina walks from room to room, smiling. 

“I can’t believe you did this,” she says, shaking her head. Her honey-blonde hair bounces in its high ponytail. “The bathroom – the guest rooms!”

“We can now use your back porch, instead of risking certain death on those planks,” he adds. 

“You’re such a worrywart sometimes,” she mutters, eyes sparkling. A flush touches her dusky cheeks. “It’s so – it’s wonderful. Thank you, babe.”

She comes to sit on his lap, sweaty and tired from her patrol shift in the city. He wraps an arm around her and kisses the salt from her throat, feeling her relaxation and calm through the bond still so new. 

“The kitchen table is still the same,” he murmurs into her skin. 

She bites at his jawline. “I noticed.”

Still, he cannot let loose the words he wants. 

*

[4]

Aden can taste blood on his tongue, tinny and warm. 

Sitting in his office in the middle of the afternoon, he looks up from the tablet containing reports from the most recent string of Silent Voices attacks on the Honeycomb Protocol. He touches his chest, right over his thumping heart. 

There is a disturbance in the bond he doesn’t fully fathom, one that ties him to a changeling deep in the redwood forests of California. He tastes panic, acrid in the back of his throat; a shimmer of fear. 

_Vasic_ , he says to his best and closest friend. 

Immediately, Vasic appears in his office. His silver-grey eyes fix on Aden as Aden rises from behind his desk. The sun is hot through the windows of the new Arrow complex. No more hiding underground like the monsters of the Net; they are coming into the light, and letting it in. Outside, he can hear the Arrow children at play, on their break from courses and skill classes. The yips and happy barks of dogs fill the air. Each Arrow has a pet, now; Sahara’s invention. The connections help the Arrows and the students regulate their emotional output. To receive unconditional love from a creature is helpful. 

“What’s wrong?” Vasic asks, tilting his head. There are streaks of dirt on his neck and arm, his jeans and t-shirt covered in what seems to be mulch. 

“I need to go to DarkRiver’s territory,” Aden says, reaching for his jacket. He comes around from his desk, the tablet forgotten. 

“I only have clearance in certain areas,” Vasic says, brow furrowed. 

“The cabin will do.” Aden telepaths to Abbot, informing him of Aden’s upcoming absence. _Redirect all inquiries to Zaira or Vasic._

The panic deepens, harsh and bitter in his throat. When he shuts his eyes he thinks he can sense claws pushing out of his skin, the brush of fur over his skin. In an instant lush grass and twigs flatten under his boots and he breathes in the sticky pine and deep wood scents of the forest. The cabin, gleaming and fresh, stands before him. It is empty. 

Aden hurries into the house with wide strides, his palms damp. His gaze flicks from empty room to room. In the kitchen, remains of lunch sit carelessly abandoned. The coffee in her favorite purple mug is lukewarm.

She should be here. Rina’s days off are precious and few, and as the cat she is, she enjoys the sensation of lazy lounging. It happens so infrequently. 

Behind Aden, lingering on the porch so recently repaired in an afternoon by Aden and Kit together, Vasic inhales. “Ivy has need of me. Something at the empath training location.”

 _Yes, there._ The bond rattles with knowledge, sickening and harsh. “I will go.”

They teleport into mayhem. The grass is slick under Aden’s boots, red and dark. _No_. 

Black-suited bodies lay immoveable, handled with vicious control by DarkRiver and SnowDancer soldiers. Krychek is here somewhere; Aden always makes certain to know where Kaleb is anytime there is an incident. Their uneasy alliance may be morphing into a tentative friendship, but there is no room for error with the planet’s health at stake. 

“Vasic!” 

Aden watches as Ivy flits past him to embrace her husband. His gaze focuses beyond the couple, to an orange-dusk-filled glade. Kit and Mercy are there, Mercy stroking her hands over the still form of a changeling leopard. 

_Wait_.

Swallowing hard, Aden breaks into a hard run. There are healers and empaths strewn about the forested copse. Mentally, he reaches into the psychic plane and grabs hold of the bond he still cannot completely fathom, and grips it. 

“Holy shit, Aden – “ Kit says, normally sun-tanned face ashen. “How – “

“What happened?” he asks at a sharp clip, kneeling next to him. Rina in leopard form is as striking as in human form, saturated gold with dark rosettes along her fur. There is a pattern of rosettes along her spine which echoes a mole pattern at her right shoulder-blade. Blood seeps from a wound in her belly. 

“It looks like Ming, but with the Consortium business, we don’t know. A mix of Psy and humans appeared out of fucking nowhere and tried to force themselves into the empath area. How they got the exact location, I have no idea,” Mercy says, sitting back on her heels. She has clearly recovered from birth, despite the relatively recent labor. Her hands remain on Rina’s fur, stroking her neck in comfort.

“You should not be so close to the area, in case of further attack,” Aden says, thinking of the four pupcubs just barely two months old. Children need parents. An Arrow knows that as much as any infant. 

Mercy turns a glare on him. “Look, _medic_ \- “

“Why was she here?” Aden asks Kit as the younger man hands him a pair of medical gloves. His touches along Rina’s wound, calculating the blood loss by what slicks the grass beneath them. He grasps at her through the bond, anchoring her to him. 

“Just on a run. I was on patrol, she came up to say hi,” Kit says, shaken and grey. 

“Where’s Tammy?”

Kit jerks his head across the clearing. The area is abuzz with movement. “Dezi’s critical. Lucas and Tammy are dealing with it.”

“So it’s just us,” Aden says. “Mercy, can you – “

The sentinel whistles and raises her open hand. A medikit sails into it. “Helpful to have a mate with wicked aim,” she says with a grin.

“In more ways than one,” Kit mutters. 

“Kit, please retrieve the mini-stapler,” Aden says, voice cool. He takes the antiseptic and passes it thoroughly over the wound. Rina’s breathing is slow and steady, a good sign. She is uncommonly still, which terrifies him deeply. 

“Stapler?”

“I can’t stitch fast enough to close up the wound. If Tammy will be long in coming, we need to get this closed _now_ ,” Aden says, and Kit complies immediately, pushing the cool metal into Aden’s open hand. 

“You need to talk to her,” Mercy says after a moment, as Aden begins to close the wound. 

“Who?” Aden murmurs, the fingers of his gloves stained rust-red. 

“Rina. Talk to her,” Mercy says softly, her fingers stroking through soft gold fur. 

Aden swallows, his jaw clenched. “You will be fine,” he says after a quiet moment, nodding at Kit to mop at her damp fur. “I have you here.”

The bond deep in his chest flinches and he holds on, grasping at her the only way he knows how. The physical part of his nature only comes alive with her, and in battle; he knows the ways of the mind though. 

_I am not letting you go,_ he telepaths to her. Whether the bond exists on his level, he isn’t sure. _You are one of my people, and I never let my people go without a fight._

A soft huff of breath leaves her snout. He leans in, pressing his cheek to her ribs as his fingers work at her belly. “I have you here,” he murmurs, voice chilled and controlled. _And I have you here_ , he tells her mentally. His hold on her psychic self is exorable. Even as the blood stains his gloved hands, he does not let her go. 

Hours later, in her human form, Rina rests in the bed he shares with her more often than not. He watches her from the doorway, words choking his throat and tangling his tongue. The scent of blood remains in his nose. He thinks he will have nightmares for days, of her life leaking between his helpless fingers. Night sinks over the forest skies, dark and starry above the autumn leaves. 

“You should change and rest,” Tammy says from behind him. 

He looks off to the side, down the corridor. Tammy, weary and pale, smiles at him from the top of the stairs. “You held her here. She’s going to be just fine,” she adds, dark hair pulled back from the day’s exertions in a limp ponytail. “You did well for your mate.”

Aden just nods, in thanks. There’s a chokehold on the bond, a fear of releasing it will make it disappear. He moves into Rina’s dark bedroom and strips off his clothes. Skin comforts her, he tells himself. She will want skin to skin. 

What he can’t wholly admit is that he _needs_ it, too. 

Naked, he walks into the bathroom connected to her room and showers briefly, before he slips into bed next to her. She is so still and quiescent, all loose damp honey-dark curls and sunken eyes in the dim summer night. He curls up next to her, his chest and hips pressed to her side. Something eases in her breathing and she relaxes into the touch. 

He should say it now. The words are there on his tongue, battering at his teeth. 

But she sighs and opens her eyes, her hand falling to rest on his bare hip. 

“Hey there, doc,” she murmurs. 

Aden curls around her and noses at her throat, through her soft curls. “Do you need anything?” he asks quietly. 

She flexes her fingers on his skin. “Nope. I’ve got you.”

“You do,” he says, and her answering sigh is enough for now. 

*

[5]

“I love you,” Rina says, sitting in bed with just his t-shirt on, her hands outstretched. The look in her eyes can only be described as predatory, in the milky moonlight of an autumn night. 

Pausing in the doorway, Aden blinks. The cool carton of cookies-and-cream ice cream gives slightly under his fingertips. 

“You are merely saying that because I’ve brought you dessert,” he says at last, padding over to their bed and handing her the pint carton and a spoon. 

Laughing, Rina leans over and kisses him, her mouth warm and soft against his. “Got me,” she says even as she envelops him with affection through the mating bond, bright and energetic and a constant reminder that he is important for reasons other than war and leadership. 

Together, they curl up against the headboard of the bed and pick at the ice cream. She nestles into his side and he strokes his hand over her loose mussed curls, staring into the silver-limned air. She is soft with him in ways he never would have expected, but then again so is he. When he comes home, frustrated with the delicate battle between saving his Arrows and driving them into an early grave by pushing too hard, she is there to press her fingers into his shoulderblades and listen. She is just outside enough to lend a well-formed perspective, and she knows the ebbs and flows of a Pack mentality to provide advice. But, on days when he needs it, she is all loose fun and pointed touches, skin privileges a comfort he will never go without again. 

All he wants is to be as much of a partner for her as she is for him. 

“Kit’s going to move out, I think,” she says around a spoonful of ice cream. 

“Oh?”

She sighs; the feeling behind it ripples right through him. “It’s probably time. He’s got to branch out and prepare for his life, you know?” she says, reaching across his bare chest to set the slick pint container on the nightstand. 

“If he thinks the time is right,” Aden says carefully, smoothing his fingers through her hair. 

Looking up at him, she frowns. “I just – it’s just been the two of us for so long. And he’s annoying as hell, but I do like having him here with us,” she says, her brow crinkling with concern. 

“He does not have to go. I like having him around, as well,” he says. 

She shrugs and draws nonsense patterns along his chest with her fingertips. “He wants to, though. It’s okay. We’re all mated and honeymooning – “

“Honeymooning?”

“And he’s probably annoyed by it. Whatever,” she murmurs. 

Aden bends to kiss her forehead, her cheek, her mouth as she turns it up to him. He pulls her closer to him and she takes the hint, straddling his waist with a slight smile. 

“He will always come back. You’re family,” he says, stroking his hands over her bare smooth thighs. The toned muscle twitches right under her skin, thrumming with life. 

Smiling, she leans over him and kisses him. He can taste chocolate cookie on her tongue. “You would know a little about that, wouldn’t you?” she says, gaze shimmering. “Thank you.”

Now – now would be the moment to release the stranglehold he has on those words. He _feels_ it so deeply, and he _knows_ she can feel it too – but he wants to say it. He wants to give voice to what she has done for him, through her snarls and joy and wit and laughter and her ferocity. 

His tongue remains tied, and all he can do is kiss her. The ice cream melts slowly in its container. In the morning, he adds _ice cream_ to the grocery store list pinned to the ecofridge, amidst her laughter. 

*

[+1]

In the baking aisle, Aden holds up a can of chocolate frosting. “Yes?”

Resting her elbows on the steering bar of their cart, with her weight leaning on it, Rina glares at him. “No way.”

“You wanted it last night.”

She groans and rocks from side to side, her protruding belly moving with her. Her bright blue dress twitches with the movement, brushing against the tops of her tight-encased knees. Six months pregnant, and she is still as exuberant as when they met over a year ago. The early months were difficult; Aden had to get very creative when cooking for her. Now, at the tail end of her second trimester, her nausea has settled. The aches remain, and the tension in the balls of her feet and at the small of her back is constant, but he has strong hands. 

The very fact she is carrying their child is a miracle in itself. 

“I think I just want sugar cookies,” she murmurs. 

He puts the frosting back – not reluctantly, as it isn’t very nutritionally sound – and they stroll down the aisle at her pace. His hand falls to her back and his knuckles rub at her muscles gently. She arches into the touch like the cat that resides within her, something resembling a purr coming out of her mouth. 

“And a margarita.”

“Tacos with lime pico de gallo is as far as I’ll stretch for you there,” Aden says mildly as they turn down the freezer aisle. 

She scowls. “Your kid is trouble.”

Aden leans over to kiss her temple. There are many minds, human, changeling and Psy, in this store. He does not care who sees them and his public displays of affection. The store is cozy and warm, a contrast to the last vestiges of winter clinging to the area outside. The roads are damp and icy and the skies are a hard cold grey. 

_Your mother doesn’t mean it_ , Aden tells the child in her womb. The telepathic connection is a recent development. He doesn’t do it constantly; but he wants to assure their child that they will be loved always, and cared for. There will be no sense of abandonment, no matter what their skills and abilities. No child of theirs is a pariah. _Your mother loves you._

“You’re all quiet and thinky over there,” Rina says, squinting at him as they linger in front of the ice cream section. 

He runs his knuckles over her spine, feeling the weave of her sweater under his touch. “What kind of ice cream do you want?”

She sighs, stretching her spine and curling into him. His arm settles around her shoulders. “No kinds. I want a martini.”

“Rina, I love you, but you’re only getting ice cream.”

The words fall out easily. He blinks, hearing them echo in his ears. A frisson of tension settles through her for a moment and then there is a sharp burst of pleasure through the mating bond, something he feels so deeply and truly. She looks up at him, eyes wide and dark. 

“Yeah?” she asks, abruptly soft. 

He smooths a hand over her shoulderblades, leaning down to kiss her. They could be surrounded by every changeling in DarkRiver and SnowDancer, and he would still kiss her, give her the reassurance of skin privileges. “Yes. Mint chocolate chip or cookies and cream?” he asks evenly. 

A wide smile curves her mouth. She lifts up on her tiptoes and kisses him again, the swell of her belly pressing against his ribs. 

“Chocolate marshmallow,” she says softly. 

Aden nods, and opens the freezer door. His smile reflects back at him in the glass. 

*


End file.
